Impacts and Responses
The impacts of electricity supply disruptions during extreme weather events can be far-reaching.
with that failure [of the grid] came a cascade of failures that went from communications [to] water
Among the impacts considered most disruptive or damaging by participants are those on access to telecommunications, water, sewerage, fuel, and refrigeration, but impacts also include loss of access to more discretionary services associated with comfort, such as hot showers and being able to have a cup of tea. Losing power can also have an emotional dimension, leaving people feeling literally and figuratively ‘in the dark’.
People use a variety of strategies to maintain access to critical energy-dependent services.
Some of the most significant impacts and strategies used to maintain energy-dependent services include:
- Telecommunications: Grid outages can impact use of mobile phones, landline phones, television, radio, internet and social media, either or both due to power outages within households and through disruption to broader communications infrastructure. People responded by relying on face-to-face communication, using back-up options such as satellite mobile phones, and battery-operated radios, and sharing access to communications technologies.
- Water: Water supply can be affected where it depends on electric pumps on individual properties or at community pumping stations. Strategies to ensure access to water include using fuel pumps, gravity feed systems, or electric pumps powered by solar and battery systems, as well as keeping stocks of drinking water on hand.
- Fuel: Access to fuel can be affected as petrol stations may not be able to pump fuel due to lack of electricity, or as people may be unable to reach petrol stations due to blocked or flooded roads. Those reliant on fuel generators tend to make sure that they stock up on fuel where they have advance notice of an outage.
- Refrigeration: To prevent loss of refrigerated food and medicine supplies, people keep fridges shut, consolidate supplies into one rather than multiple fridges, share fridges between households, or use eskies.
Energy resilience means different things to different people:
- having alternative sources of electricity to ensure undisrupted access to a service (e.g. using a generator or solar and battery system to run a refrigerator)
- using non-electrical energy sources to access the same service (e.g. using an esky for refrigeration)
- adapting to not having access to the service (e.g. doing without refrigeration)
In other words, it can mean finding ways to be able to continue life almost as normal, or it can mean coping when life is not normal.
Diversifying the options available to access services is an important way of increasing energy resilience. This means that when one form of technology is unavailable, others can be counted on. On the other hand, depending on one type of technology to achieve an outcome – or being dependent on electricity in general – may leave people more vulnerable:
this cashless economy that we live in where everyone pays with EFTPOS, tap and go […] When you lose the electricity network and the communications networks, we’re back into the Stone Age’
Multiple alternative options can be maintained in a household or within the broader community. Examples include having a combination of petrol fire-fighting pumps and electric pumps available or having access to a gas barbeque as well as an induction stovetop for cooking.
Impacts and strategies can vary considerably according to the duration of the outage, and may change over its course. The experience of an outage is not necessarily linear and there may be thresholds or ‘step changes’, e.g. freezer defrosting or a phone battery running out, at which the disruption becomes more difficult or requires different responses.
Some effective strategies used to cope during an electricity supply disruption may be developed as required, but in general being prepared in advance enables people to cope better. Participants describe the importance of planning and mental preparation as well as a number of actions that may be taken in advance of an outage; e.g.:
- maintaining supplies of water, food and fuel on hand or stocking up in advance of an expected outage
- maintaining generators and pumps ready for use
- keeping battery-run equipment charged
- charging a home battery ahead of an expected outage where possible.
Experience from the past can be valuable in responding to grid outages, and actively learning from what worked and what didn’t during recent events, such as the outages experienced during Black Summer, is considered important by the participants. One expert participant described how the experience of Black Summer ‘really got me thinking about back-up power in a way that I haven’t before’